Short Alan Watts Quotes on Love

The problem is to overcome the ingrained disbelief in the power of winning nature by love, in the gentle way (do) of turning with the skid, of controlling ourselves by cooperating with ourselves.

Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.

Alan Watts Quotes on Life

I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.

The hostile attitude of conquering nature ignores the basic interdependence of all things and events–that the world beyond the skin is actually an extension of our own bodies–and will end in destroying the very environment from which we emerge and upon which our whole life depends.

Alan Watts Quotes on Death

When death comes, it’s just like winter. We don’t say, “There ought not to be winter.” That the winter season, when the leaves fall and the snow comes, is some kind of defeat, something which we should hold out against. No. Winter is part of the natural course of events. No winter, no summer. No cold, no heat.

If happiness always depends on something expected in the future, we are chasing a will-o’-the-wisp that ever eludes our grasp, until the future, and ourselves, vanish into the abyss of death.

Short Alan Watts Quotes on Self

Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be

You have seen that the universe is at root a magical illusion and a fabulous game, and that there is no separate “you” to get something out of it, as if life were a bank to be robbed. The only real “you” is the one that comes and goes, manifests and withdraws itself eternally in and as every conscious being. For “you” is the universe looking at itself from billions of points of view, points that come and go so that the vision is forever new.

You are the universe experiencing itself.

Alan Watts Quotes on Music

Life is like music for its own sake. We are living in an eternal now, and when we listen to music we are not listening to the past, we are not listening to the future, we are listening to an expanded present.

en somebody plays music, you listen. you just follow those sounds, and eventually you understand the music. the point can’t be explained in words because music is not words, but after listening for a while, you understand the point of it, and that point is the music itself. in exactly the same way, you can listen to all experiences.

Short Alan Watts Quotes on Dance

When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

It is interesting that Hindus, when they speak of the creation of the universe do not call it the work of God, they call it the play of God, the Vishnu lila, lila meaning play. And they look upon the whole manifestation of all the universes as a play, as a sport, as a kind of dance — lila perhaps being somewhat related to our word lilt

Alan Watts Quotes on Philosophy

Philosophy is man’s expression of curiosity about everything and his attempt to make sense of the world primarily through his intellect.

The menu is not the meal.

Alan Watts Quotes on Water

The harder we try to catch hold of the moment, to seize a pleasant sensation…, the more elusive it becomes… It is like trying to clutch water in one’s hands – the harder one grips, the faster it slips through one’s fingers.

Of course, you can’t force your mind to be silent. That would be like trying to smooth ripples in water with a flatiron. Water becomes clear and calm only when left alone.

Short Alan Watts Quotes on Art

The Art of Being: A state of wholeness in which the mind functions freely and easily, without the sensation of a second mind or ego standing over it with a club.

We are sick with fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas. Meditation is therefore the art of suspending verbal and symbolic thinking for a time, somewhat as a courteous audience will stop talking when a concert is about to begin.

Alan Watts Quotes on Ocean

You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.

You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.

Alan Watts Quotes about Attitude

What are we saying when we say now, something is holy? That means you should take a different attitude to what you are doing than if you were, for example, doing it for kicks.

Life and love generate effort, but effort will not generate them. Faith-in life, in other people, and in oneself-is the attitude of allowing the spontaneous to be spontaneous, in its own way and in its own time.

Alan Watts Quotes Waking Up

Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be

Short Alan Watts Quotes on War

Wars based on principle are far more destructive… the attacker will not destroy that which he is after.

We are at war between consciousness and nature, between the desire for permanence and the fact of flux. It is our self against ourselves.

Alan Watts Quotes Change

To resist change, to try to cling to life, is therefore like holding your breath: if you persist you kill yourself.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

Short Alan Watts Quotes on Values

It is also in despair of being able to understand or make any productive contribution to the highly organised chaos of our politico-economic system that large numbers of people simply abandon political and social commitments. They just let society be taken over by a pattern of organisation which is as self-proliferative as a weed, and whose ends and values are neither human nor instinctive but mechanical.

The reason we have poverty is that we have no imagination. There are a great many people accumulating what they think is vast wealth, but it’s only money… they don’t know how to enjoy it, because they have no imagination.

There are two specific objections to use of psychedelic drugs. First, use of these drugs may be dangerous. How every worth-while exploration is dangerous-climbing mountains, testing aircraft, rocket in into outer space, or collecting botanical specimens in jungles. But if you value knowledge & the actual delight of exploration more than mere duration of uneventful life, you are willing to take the risks.

Alan Watts Quotes on Faith

You know that if you get in the water and have nothing to hold on to, but try to behave as you would on dry land, you will drown. But if, on the other hand, you trust yourself to the water and let go, you will float. And this is exactly the situation of faith.

Faith is a state of openness or trust.

Alan Watts Quotes on Meditation

Meditation is the way in which we come to feel our basic inseparability from the whole universe, and what that requires is that we shut up.

You can make any human activity into meditation simply by being completely with it and doing it just to do it.

Alan Watts Quotes on Universe

You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.

If the universe is meaningless, so is the statement that it is so. If this world is a vicious trap, so is its accuser, and the pot is calling the kettle black.

Alan Watts Quotes about Creation

In Hindu philosophy the whole creation is regarded as the Vishnu Lila, the play of Vishnu. Lila means dance or play. Also in Hindu philosophy, they call the world illusion; and in Latin the root of the word illusion is louder, to play.

It is interesting that Hindus, when they speak of the creation of the universe do not call it the work of God, they call it the play of God, the Vishnu Lila, Lila meaning play. And they look upon the whole manifestation of all the universes as a play, as a sport, as a kind of dance — Lila perhaps being somewhat related to our word lilt

Enlightenment or awakening is not the creation of a new state of affairs but the recognition of what already is.

Short Alan Watts Quotes about Time

We are seeing, then, that our experience is altogether momentary. From one point of view, each moment is so elusive and so brief that we cannot even think about it before it has gone. From another point of view, this moment is always here, since we know no other moment than the present moment. It is always dying, always becoming past more rapidly than imagination can conceive. Yet at the same time it is always being born, always new, emerging just as rapidly from that complete unknown we call the future. Thinking about it almost makes you breathless.

I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.

this present moment never comes to be and it never ceases to be, it is simply our minds that construct the continuity of thoughts we call time. In the present moment is nirvana.

Alan Watts Quotes Forget the Money

And uh, forget the money. Because, if you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life wasting your time. You will be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is, in order to do things, you don’t like doing, which is stupid. Better to have a short life that is full of things you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way.

If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you’ll spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing thing you don’t like doing, which is stupid.

Alan Watts Quotes on Real World

If my happiness at this moment consists largely in reviewing happy memories and expectations, I am but dimly aware of this present. I shall still be dimly aware of the present when the good things that I have been expecting come to pass. For I shall have formed a habit of looking behind and ahead, making it difficult for me to attend to the here and now. If, then , my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.

If, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.

The more we try to live in the world of words, the more we feel isolated and alone, the more all the joy and liveliness of things is exchanged for mere certainty and security. On the other hand, the more we are forced to admit that we actually live in the real world, the more we feel ignorant, uncertain, and insecure about everything.

Alan Watts Quotes Wave

You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.

We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.

Motivational Quotes by Alan Watts

To play so as to be relaxed and refreshed for work is not to play, and no work is well and finely done unless it, too, is a form of play.

The power of memories and expectations is such that for most human beings, the past and the future are not as real, but rather more real than the present.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such a fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself as anything less than a god? And, when you consider that this incalculably subtle organism is inseparable from the still more marvelous patterns of its environment – from the minutest electrical designs to the whole company of the galaxies – how is it conceivable that this incarnation of all eternity can be bored with being?

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